In an article posted by The Monitor, Johnny Lopez, owner of Springboards To Education and it’s terrible website, of Edinburg has filed a lawsuit against McAllen ISD, PSJA ISD, La Joya ISD, Mission ISD and IDEA charter schools for using the phrases “Millionaire Reader,” “Read a Million Words, “Millionaire’s Reading Club,” “Million Dollar Reader,” “Feel Like a Million Bucks” to incentivize their kids to read.
From The Monitor:
So let’s get this timeline straight:
Lopez develops a “curriculum” and “packages” to incentivize kids to read, which includes a program/reward for kids who have read, literally, a million words.
Got it? Ok.
He subsequently creates an entire business based off of this comically simple model and trademarks a few corny-ass phrases like “Millionaire Reader” and “Million Dollar Reader” etc to slap on certificates and banners or whatever. He packages all of these “programs” and “curriculum” to sell to schools all over the Valley, going district to district selling the same, again, overly simplified concept/model to incentivize kids to read. Some of the districts don’t bite and they end up making their own “incentive programs” and start slapping certificates and banners with “Millionaire Reader” and “Million Dollar Reader” and now Lopez believes whole-heartedly that he has a case against these schools for using these phrases.
Besides the point that there is no commercial gain from these schools using the phrase “Millionaire Reader” in attempts to incentivize their kids, Lopez is likely alleging loss of business due to these school’s infringement of his copy-write. Honestly, I don’t blame the guy for lashing out to other districts if his business is suffering from them, but in reality, the party that had the most damaging effect toward his business was Lopez himself for being stupid enough to cement his business on a model that was so easy to duplicate.
Fuck this guy.
Maybe the day this gets thrown out, I’ll print Lopez a “Non-Million Dollar Settlement” certificate for him to remember this stupid lawsuit by.
